A breath of fresh air
by Ceallai
Summary: Slow burn Marichat set after the events of Miracle Queen, written while waiting for season 4. Marinette and Chat Noir get closer. Maybe other stuff happens, idk. May or may not continue.
1. A breath of fresh air

**A breath of fresh air**

It was summer, and like every summer in Paris, the heat was suffocating. Ice cream on the banks of the Seine had been fun for a while, but when temperatures climbed into the forties, the gang had had to find other solutions. Kim had suggested swimming, but one crazy afternoon spent losing each other in the public swimming pool with seemingly the entire population of Paris in it had put them off so badly that Marinette was surprised nobody had gotten akumatized that day.

Kagami had suggested the ice rink. Philippe, the owner, had greeted them with open arms, but so had a horde of Adrien's fans who had been coming ever since he'd published that one selfie on social media, hoping to bump into him. The gang had been forced to flee.

The bakery was air conditioned, so Marinette had suggested they all go there, but Alya shot that idea down before her parents had the chance to: it was too small for everyone to fit in at once, and they only had air conditioning in the shop, not in the flat upstairs.

Adrien, who felt somewhat responsible for their last misadventure, had then attempted to sneak them all into his air conditioned bedroom, with the help (or at least, the complicit inaction) of his bodyguard. This had worked perfectly for an entire afternoon, before Nathalie showed up to ask if he'd heard from his Mandarin teacher, who hadn't turned up and wasn't answering his phone. She'd found Adrien sprawled out with eight of his classmates, all dozing blissfully under the air conditioning, with a ninth _in the shower in his swimming trunks _where the water had been running for goodness knew how long. They had all received a stern telling off from Gabriel Agreste and were forbidden from entering the house for the remainder of the summer. Adrien, of course, was grounded.

After that, they had stopped hanging out all together. It didn't feel right when one of them couldn't be there. Sometimes small groups of them would find each other and call the others, often on the Liberty during Kitty Section rehearsals, but finding a mooring spot in the shade was impossible most days, and the air below deck was stifling. At one point Alya's mother let Alya, Nino and Marinette stay in the hotel kitchen during off hours as long as they did the dishes (they were careful to avoid being spotted by Chloe, who would have had a field day), but this deal ended after only two days when Marinette dropped a huge pile of plates, smashing all of them.

So here she was at the end of July, working in the bakery to make up for the money she now owed her parents. She felt bad about the plates and her parents having to pay – they hadn't been cheap – and she suspected they'd put her there so she'd stay put and stop getting into trouble trying to cool off. It worked well enough: the alternative would have been sitting in the stuffy heat upstairs where, some nights, she begged Tikki to let her transform into aquabug and jump into the Seine. She wasn't _entirely_ serious, of course; she still wasn't sure of her potion-making abilities without Master Fu there to help her, and was trying not to think of the day she ran out of magic macaroons. But the thought was so tempting.

Thankfully, Hawkmoth and Mayura seemed to have gone on vacation, because nobody had been akumatized in just over a month – not since the Miracle Queen debacle. Ladybug and Chat Noir still patrolled a few times a week just in case, but when she'd suggested meeting more often, Chat Noir had cocked his head in honest bafflement and asked "what for?", like he hadn't been begging her to go on a date with him since they'd met last year.

Not that she wanted to _date_ Chat Noir. Of course not. But she did miss him on the nights when they weren't out together. He'd been a little different lately; much less flirty and touchy-feely, but the puns were still there, and so was the kindness. She'd been trying to get over Adrien and Kagami, and Master Fu vanishing from her life, and trying not to think about the huge responsibility of being the Guardian, and what to do about Luka (how _did _she feel about Luka?), but it was A Lot, and between all those things and the heat, she often found herself on her rooftop balcony in the wee hours of the morning, gazing out at the yellow city lights while Tikki slept, trying to clear her head.

It was on one of these nights that he first appeared, materializing out of the darkness behind her chimney and dropping lithely onto the iron railing with a familiar "Hey, Purr-incess". It had been so long since she'd seen him as Marinette that she felt her cheeks flush a little at the greeting, but then she frowned. Why would he turn Ladybug down if he was going to be out in costume anyway?

"Isn't it your night off?" she asked, coming to lean on the railing next to him.

"You know my schedule," he grinned. "I'm flattered."

She rolled her eyes to hide her sudden panic, and fell back on a much used lie. "My best friend writes the Ladyblog. We know _everything_."

Chat gasped in mock horror, swaying perilously as he leaned back. "_You know who I am?"_

"Well, everything except that," Marinette chuckled, relieved he hadn't chosen to probe further.

Chat Noir laughed as well, and she found herself relaxing. It felt nice just to be with him. A welcome distraction from the murk that rose from the bottom of her mind every time she was alone. He settled on the railing next to her, quite close, and kicked his legs idly into the empty air, looking like a small child sitting on a chair too big for him.

"So, what _are_ you doing out?" She asked again. "In this heat, in black… what is that stuff anyway?" she picked at the fabric of his sleeve.

Chat stretched out an arm, flexing clawed fingers in the leathery-spandexy fabric of his gloves. It didn't creak the way leather would. "I don't know," he said. "I've never even wondered. Some kind of magic material, I guess. Trust you to ask _that," _He chuckled and held out a hand, palm up, for her to examine. She ran her fingers over the material, noting the way it hardened seamlessly at his claws. Of course, Marinette was more familiar with Chat Noir's costume than he suspected, but she'd never had the chance to look at it with her designer's eyes, so to speak. She'd always thought it would be similar to her Ladybug costume, but now she noticed that the texture of it wasn't quite the same. Even the light bounced off it differently.

"I wonder what I could make with magical fabric?" she murmured.

"A _claw_-some costume for yourself?" he raised an eyebrow.

"One with many, many pockets," she agreed, choosing to ignore the pun. "Each pocket would lead to a different place, like my bedroom or my locker, so if I forgot anything, I could just pick it out of my pocket!" She beamed at him, pleased with her idea.

Chat Noir's eyes widened. "Ohh! And you could make a really big one somewhere so if you got in trouble and needed to escape, you could go through it yourself!"

Marinette's mouth twisted. "Hmm, but then I'd have to leave my costume behind, and somebody might steal it."

"True," he admitted. "You could help other people escape, though." He grinned suddenly. "Like me!"

Marinette snickered. "Why would you want to escape trouble? Don't you usually go looking for it?"

"Ex_cuse_ me, that's my _job_," he retorted. "Besides, wouldn't you love to have a pretty kitty like me to carry around in your _paw_-ket?"

He leered at her, grinning, and it took everything she had to avoid pushing him back by the nose.

She booped him instead. "Not one your size," she retorted. "Besides, I'm more of a hamster gal."

"Aww." He let out another chuckle, turning back to face the city. She giggled and nudged him gently. Unlike that first night when he'd come to talk to her – the night she'd realized his feelings for her were serious – the moon was not out tonight, and the sky was an orange shade of black. The only visible stars were the city lights shining clear through the night.

"Can I ask you something?" he said quietly, after a while.

"Sure."

He hesitated. "Is it cheating if you're dating someone, but you're still in love with someone else?"

Marinette suddenly felt her cheeks flush with shame. "W-what? Nooo! What makes you – I mean, why do you ask?" As the initial panic died down, something else occurred to her. "Wait, do you have a girlfriend now?" _And he didn't tell Ladybug?_

"I… guess?" Chat said, cocking his head with a quizzical frown. "I don't call her that, but maybe she is?"

Marinette's heart twinged. _Stupid, _she thought. _You have no right to be jealous after turning him down all those times. You don't even like him that way! You're just lonely, so stop it!_

"Sooo, you think it's okay to date someone if you have feelings for someone else?" Chat Noir asked again, apprehensively.

Marinette bit her lip, trying to imagine what she would say if she weren't in this exact situation. "I don't think it's cheating, but I don't think it's okay either," she said eventually. "You might end up making your girlfriend sad." And then guilt submerged her as she thought about how she might be making Luka sad.

Chat Noir's shoulders slumped a little. "She did say something like that once," he said.

Marinette raised an eyebrow. "So this girl _knows_ you're still in love with somebody else?"

"I think so," he said sadly. "I've been trying to distance myself from that person, though."

Marinette's heart did a tiny skip. "You mean, Ladybug?"

He nodded glumly, and she tried to figure out how to word her next question.

"Does she know?" She asked eventually. "Ladybug, I mean. Does she know you have a girlfriend?"

He sighed. "No. I can't seem to tell her. I guess that's why it feels like cheating. If I tell her I have a girlfriend, she'll think I've given up on her. It'd make it _real_."

"And… you haven't?"

"Well, I'm _trying_," he said, sounding exasperated. "It's not easy, y'know."

A disquieting mixture of feelings stirred in her stomach. They were feelings she'd been trying to ignore, because she didn't know what they meant. Marinette put her chin on her hands. "I know," she said quietly.

She felt more than saw him glance sidelong at her. "You too, huh?"

"Yup."

Chat Noir sighed, then laughed. "I feel like we've had this conversation before. Still the same guy? Or... gal?" he grinned.

She gave him a half-hearted smirk. "Do you have another candlelit rooftop set up somewhere to cheer me up?"

He snorted. "I'm no longer that hopeful," he said, and even though he said it with a lopsided grin, the bitterness in his voice made her almost want to cry.

He must have seen it in her face because he reached out and brushed her cheek with the back of one claw. "Hey, I'm sorry," he said. "I didn't mean to ruin your mood."

"N-no, you didn't! It's fine," she said, waving her hands in front of her before leaning back on the railing. "I wasn't exactly in a good mood to begin with."

He gave her a sympathetic smile. "Wanna talk about it?" he asked.

_Do I want to talk about how I'm dating Luka in order to forget Adrien, only it's not working at all, so now I just feel guilty all the time as well as sad? And overwealmed, because I have this double life that I can't cope with? Why not just admit I'm Ladybug? After this conversation, he'd run a mile, _She thought. _Nope. Let's not._

"I'd rather not even think about it," she said, which was true. "It's harder not to think about at night, that's all." She swallowed, and added quietly "Thanks for coming here tonight."

He chuckled. "You're welcome, Princess."

The silence that fell between them was like a soft blanket. Time passed without either of them noticing, each lost in their own world of thoughts, but comforted by the others' presence. Marinette only realized she'd let her head drop sideways onto his arm when she felt it shift slowly, winding around her shoulders and pulling her closer so she could lean against his side instead. Chat Noir's suit was surprisingly cool, and she before she knew what she was doing, she caught herself pressing her hot cheek against it.

"S-sorry," she mumbled, stopping.

"S'okay," he replied, stroking her bare shoulder with his thumb. There was no trace of teasing or embarassment in his voice, and she relaxed gratefully against him, letting her thoughts wander again.

Marinette didn't know how she'd fallen asleep while standing up, but she woke up alone with the first rays of pink sunlight on her face. She was curled up in her deck chair, covered in one of her own blankets, which he must have plucked from her bed after carrying her to the chair. A fond smile pulled at her lips at the thought of him tucking her in, and she wished she know when she'd see him again as Marinette, so she could thank him. Maybe she could thank him as Ladybug by bringing macarons to patrol? Yes, she decided. That was a great idea.

Satisfied with this compromise, Marinette pulled the blanket up around her shoulders, shivering a little in the deliciously cool breeze, and sat up to watch the sun rise.


	2. Pets allowed

As it turned out, Marinette didn't have to wait for their next patrol to thank Chat Noir.

"Hey Princess! You feeling better?" He'd called out the night after.

It was just past nine o'clock and the sun was still setting. Marinette spun from where she was watering her slowly dying basil plant, splashed water everywhere including on herself, and cursed. He laughed at her, hopping across the rooftops until he landed on the balcony in front of her. She scowled back, keeping her eyes away from where Tikki had just disappeared down the skylight.

"You did that on purpose," she accused.

"I honestly didn't, but I would do it again." He grinned, unrepentant.

"What do you want?"

Supernaturally green eyes glowed with mischief, then softened. "I wanted to see if you were feeling better," he said, as though it should be obvious.

Marinette blinked. "Oh. Um, I guess. Well, I mean..." Did she dare mention that following their conversation, she'd spent all day agonizing over whether or not she should break up with Luka? That after giving three people the wrong change, her mother had sent her back to the kitchen, where she'd spent the afternoon slowly dissolving in the heat of the ovens, managing to over-knead tomorrow's bread dough in her distraction? "I guess it was too much to ask for that all my problems would disappear just like that," she admitted lamely.

Chat Noir didn't comment on her vagueness. Instead he surprised her by tugging gently on a strand of her hair, which was just washed and drying rapidly in the heat. "Your hair's nice down," he said. "You should wear it like that more often."

"It's not practical at all," Marinette replied, turning back to her plants. She emptied her jug of water into the mint pot. The wet patches on her pyjama bottoms were already drying, and she decided against getting changed. It was only water. "I'm always getting stuff in my hair as it is," she added, putting the water jug down on the floor. "Today it was flour."

"Don't all bakers get flour in their hair? Isn't that part of the job?"

"Not when you're wearing a hair net."

Chat Noir let out a short laugh. "You managed to get flour in your hair _through_ the hair net?"

She pouted at him, which set him off again.

"Shut up," she grumbled. "Do you know how hard it is to wash flour out of hair? Flour and water make a sort of glue, you know."

His laughter redoubled, and he had to lean on the balcony railing for support. "Oh no," he giggled, "How did you get it out?"

"Well, first you brush as much of it out as you can, onto a towel so you can throw it in the bin afterwards," she said, ticking the steps off her fingers. "Once you've got as much of it out as you can, you put like half a bottle of conditioner directly onto your scalp and rub it in all the way to the tips, until it's absolutely everywhere. _Then_ you wash you hair until it all comes out." It usually took two washes, but being in the kitchen today had made her sweat so much that most of the flour had already turned into a crusty paste, which had made the whole operation far more difficult.

"Wow, you've got that technique down," Chat Noir remarked, still grinning at her. "How often does this happen to you?"

"Way too often," Marinette grumbled, then - "Hey! Stop! I _just_ finished brushing it!"

"Messy hair suits you better," he said, reaching towards her with his left hand when she caught his right and pushed it away. Black strands fell from his claws, tickling her nose, and she tried to blow them away as she leaned backwards, out of his reach.

"No it doesn't, and besides, I bet your hands are all dirty from running around on dusty rooftops all evening!"

"Miraculous costumes don't get dirty," he countered, dodging her hands as he gained on her, and he couldn't argue because she knew it was true.

She backed into the railing and grabbed his left wrist too, but he tangled his fingers in her hair before she could pull his hand away, grinning triumphantly as he ruffled it. He wasn't using his super strength, and he was being careful not to claw her or pull too hard. But that didn't endear him to her much.

Marinette had an idea.

"Chat _Noiiir_-" She let go of his wrists and let her arms fall to her sides in false defeat. Delighted, he reached out to muss her hair with both hands, and she darted forward, poking at his sides. He jumped back with a startled yelp, clamping his arms down.

"Cheater!"

"There are no rules in this game!" she crowed, reaching up to bury her hands in the blond mass of his hair and ruffling it vigourously. He backed off, tripped on her table and fell into the deck chair behind it, and she followed him mercilessly, leaning one knee on the edge of his seat so she could get at him. Every time he tried to grab her hands, she poked at his sides again. Eventually he slumped back in the chair, pouting, and it was her turn to let out a breathless giggle.

"Too bad for you I actually look gorgeous with messy hair," he said, his haughty air belied by the crooked smile trying to curl his lips.

"More like your hair is always messy anyway," Marinette retorted. She stood, pulling her hands out of his hair with more reluctance than she wanted to think about (it was softer than it looked), and tapped his nose for emphasis. "What would it even look like if you styled it? I can't picture it at all."

She couldn't see his eyebrows, but the top of his mask disappearing under his fringe told her he was raising them. "You'd be surprised," he said cryptically. Then he grabbed her hands and pressed them back onto his hair. "Why don't _you_ try styling it?" he grinned.

Marinette blinked in surprise, then rolled her eyes. "Is this just a ploy to get me to pet you?" she asked.

"Yep, yes it is," he said, closing his eyes as she let her fingers curl into his hair, more gently this time. "Please pet me, Princess."

She laughed and scratched behind his leather ears. "Okay, but we'll have to swap places," she said. "Sit on the floor in front of me."

He obeyed and she sat behind him, one leg on each side of his body, leaning forward in the deck chair to bury her fingers in his hair. A belated thrill of anxiety struck her then – wasn't this too intimate for Chat Noir and Marinette's friendship? Since when were they close enough to play with each others' hair?

_Since he started it,_ said a petulant voice in her mind. _He's the one acting like we're close all of a sudden. I'm just playing along._

Besides, it was nice to hang out with Chat Noir as her civilian self. She could be affectionate with him without worrying about leading him on. As Ladybug she knew that Chat Noir was a very cuddly cat, and that between fighting akuma and trying not to get his hopes up, Ladybug's affection wasn't quite enough.

She was startled out of her thoughts by a low rumbling noise. Her fingers paused in their ministrations, and it stopped.

"Are you purring?" she asked, delighted. She'd only heard him do that once before. The context had caused her to snap at him for it, and she hadn't heard him do it again since – until now.

"I'm a cat," said Chat Noir, a little defensively. "Cats purr when you pet them."

"Could you do it again?" she asked.

He half-turned to glance back at her in surprise. "Uh, I guess? I've never tried to do it on purpose. It just kinda happens."

He cleared his throat and let out a few low growly noises that made her snigger, but none of them resembled a purr.

"Well I guess that answers that question," he said with a low laugh. "It'll probably start up again if you keep petting me," he added hopefully. Sure enough, when her fingers began rubbing small circles into his scalp, the noise returned.

"I can _feel_ it," she remarked after a while. "It's actually kind of soothing for me, too."

"Cat purrs have healing properties. They play them in hospitals sometimes," he said, his voice grumbling pleasantly as the tail end of his purr turned to speech. It started again as soon as he stopped talking.

"Is that why you do it? To heal yourself when you get hit during a fight?"

He stopped purring for a moment, appearing to think about it. "I've never tried that," he said. "I'd have to be petted, I guess, for it to work? I've never needed it though. Ladybug always fixes all the bumps and bruises afterwards anyway."

Marinette, who had been making her way slowly up his scalp, stopped again when she got to his leather ears. She knew he had human ones under his hair – she'd felt them during the massage – but she also knew he could move the cat ears to express emotion, and that they enhanced his hearing. She ran her thumbs lightly over the back of them and felt him shiver.

"You can feel that?"

"Yup," he murmured, sounding sleepy. "S'nice. Do it again."

Marinette obliged, and had to hold back another giggle as he practically melted into her hands. The purring grew louder as she rubbed along the bottom edges of them. They were fused to his scalp the way his mask was fused to his skin, like a part of him.

"Your head is too heavy for me to hold and massage at the same time," she complained, letting go. He let it fall back, but he was too tall to lean comfortably on the bar of the deck chair, and his head fell backwards between her knees, not quite touching the fabric. He pouted, and the purring stopped.

"More pets!" he said, and she jokingly patted his face with the palm of her hand. "Nooo, not like that."

"You're not letting me do it right," she pointed out, booping his nose again. He clicked his teeth half-heartedly towards her finger as though to bite it before pulling his head upright again.

"_More_ pets," he repeated, and she was already burying her hands in his hair.

"Okay, I'm just gonna say it," she said after a quiet moment. "Your hair is softer than mine and I am insanely jealous."

He chuckled. "I take good care of it."

"I can tell," she said. "I don't think most boys use conditioner, but you definitely do."

"Mm-hm." She could hear the laughter in his voice even though he hadn't actually opened his mouth.

"So... are you going to tell me which products you use?" she asked when he didn't elaborate.

"Trade secret," he murmured.

"_Trade_ secret? What, are you a hairdresser in real life? No wait, don't answer that," she added quickly, but his laugh already told her she was wrong.

"You want to know my secret?" he whispered, letting his head fall backwards again so he could look at her, grinning.

"I'm not sure any more," she said, internally quashing the tiny jump of panic that he might actually tell her something that would give his identity away and telling herself not to be silly.

"Head pets." He beamed up at her.

She snorted. "Head pets?"

"Head pets," he repeated, solemn now. "Things get softer when you pet them. It's a scientific fact."

"I should be getting you to pet me, then," she said, and immediately regretted it when he stood and grabbed her hands to pull her out of the chair.

"All you had to do was ask!" He grinned, green eyes lit up by her fairy lights.

"Wait, no, I didn't mean it!"

"Come on Princess, don't be shy!" He had her on her feet now and had somehow managed to slip around her to sit in the deck chair.

"My hair's already a mess because of you, I'm not letting you touch it again!"

"I'll tidy it," he said, grabbing her hips and pulling them firmly down so she had no choice but to sit in front of him. She tried to get up again and his legs crossed in front of her chest.

"Chat!"

"I'll be really gentle, I promise," he said, still playful. He wasn't touching her hair yet, though.

She sighed. "Fiiine," she said. "Just a little bit, okay? And get your feet out of my lap."

Chat Noir let out a snort and settled his feet on either side of her. His fingers brushed her hair, rearranging her fringe into something resembling its usual shape before carefully threading his fingers down through the hair at the base of her scalp. When his fingers began to rub tiny circles there, she let out a pleased hum.

"You're surprisingly good at this," she remarked.

"You didn't think I would be?"

"I thought your claws would get in the way."

"Not if I'm careful," he said, shifting slightly upwards.

His purring started up again after a few moments of silence, and he paused, as though he himself hadn't been expecting it.

Marinette giggled. "I'll take that as a compliment," she said, and he laughed with her.

"You hair's soft, too," he confirmed, resuming his task.

"You can feel it through the costume?" she asked, hoping he wouldn't hear the note of envy in her voice.

"Sort of," he said, and she wondered – not for the first time – just how much the wearer influenced the costume. She didn't remember much of a difference from the one time she'd borne the cat ring, but then, she'd been somewhat distracted by the akuma and sentimonster they'd had to beat.

The sun was gone now, and the sky was turning from deep pink to dark purple. The fairy lights she'd plugged in when she'd come up here glowed in the corner of her eyes, tugging at her attention, and she closed them. Chat Noir had worked his way from the nape of her neck to the crown of her head and was now threading his fingers over her ears so he could do it again at another angle. Marinette found herself softening into his hands – _she_ wasn't too tall to lean against the deck chair – and she wondered where on Earth he'd learned such magic. She felt more relaxed now than she had in weeks – no, months.

"Hey, Chat Noir?" she murmured, the words slow and thick on her tongue.

"Hm?"

"Thanks again."

"Again?"

"For this, and also for last night," she clarified. She hoped he understood her this time because forming sentences was increasingly difficult.

"Oh," he said. Then, belatedly, as though he, too, were struggling to stay awake: "No problem."

It was the purring, she decided sleepily. He was right, there was something comforting about it. Marinette idly wondered if her parents would let her adopt a kitten.

It was her last coherent thought before sleep finally caught up to her, wrapping around her mind like a soft, dark blanket. This time, when she woke up the next morning, it was in her own warm bed, with only a fleeting memory of strong arms laying her gently down there, a careful claw tucking hair behind her ear. Her hair, of course, was a cat's cradle of knots, but she couldn't find it in herself to be mad at him.


	3. Everything I Wanted

"I had a dream

I got everything I wanted

Not what you'd think

And if I'm being honest

It might have been a nightmare..."

_Marinette is kissing Adrien, and it is heaven. The second he told her he loved her, all the jittery self-conscious panic she felt around him dissolved into warm fizz in her heart, which is now close to bursting with joy. He's holding her hand, his other is hand on her arm, pulling her closer. He's wearing the beret she made for him – the one that somehow made him realize that he loved her. She can't believe this is real, and yet it has to be. She can hear her friends cheering behind her, feel the warmth of his lips on hers, smell the heat of the sun on his skin, and yet she's so dizzy with happiness it feels like she's falling, falling..._

_...she _is_ falling, cold air whipping her face, dropping down towards water, angling her red-shod feet to land on a floating bus just as his voice shouts -_

_"Now you're breaking more than my heart, Marinette!"_

_Ice seizes her gut, and she glances back towards him –only to see her partner, akumatized. "_What?!_" she yelps, and lands badly on the bus, just barely staying out of the water. "What did you call me?"_

_He stands over her, spreading his arms. "Give me a hug... _Marinette!_"_

_The venom in his voice knocks the breath out of her, almost pinning her to the spot, but survival instinct kicks in when he tries to cataclysm her. She jumps away, leaping frantically from car to car, but he's gaining on her, he's been here a long time and he knows all the paths and short cuts over the water and she can't figure out how he _knows_, how does he _know_ her, how did this happen, he's coming, he's going to destroy her and then himself and everything that's left, which is almost nothing, she can't let him do it but she doesn't know what to do, Bunnix is gone and she can't escape and he's gaining on her, he's coming, he's THERE-_

Everything went dark.

"Marinette!"

She gasped, suddenly hot and sweaty in her suit – no, not her suit –

"Marinette! Wake up! Marinette!"

Tikki! She must have detransformed, and now she was tied up, something smothering her, blocking her vision –

"Marinette, it's just the pillow! Calm down and breathe! It was a dream, Marinette!"

...A dream?

Marinette forced herself to stop moving and focus on what she could feel. Blankets damp with sweat tangled around her limbs. Hair in her mouth and a large, soft pressure on her face. She took three deep breaths through the soft thing. The air was hot, but at least she was breathing. Trying not to panic again, she began to wiggle her arms out of the blankets until her hands were free. When she pushed away her cat pillow, wiping the hair away from her face, the full moon shone down through her skylight, almost blinding her. She was breathing too fast. She sat up, pulling her knees to her chest, and scanned the bedroom, making mental lists of the objects she could see and feel while she forced shaky breaths into her lungs. Her brain refused to count, so she held each breath for as long as she could before blowing the air slowly out through tightly pursed lips. Tikki nuzzled her hands, clutched tight over her knees. She was stroking Marinette's fingers with her tiny paws and murmuring soft reassurances that barely registered.

As memories of where she was trickled back into her consciousness, details of the nightmare fell away, like the black dust of a cataclysmed object.

Or person.

_Don't think of that don't think of that think of now here this room_

A shadow passed over the moon and she looked up -

\- to see the object of her nightmare staring down at her.

Marinette let out a strangled cry. The creature jumped back, eyes like green headlights, pupils shrinking to tiny slits, and she realized it was Chat Noir, his shiny black suit reflecting the moonlight. He was saying something, but she couldn't hear it through the glass and over the sound of her own harsh breathing.

Tikki, who had retreated to the shadows behind her, whispered: "Go talk to him! It'll take your mind off the nightmare."

Marinette stared at Chat Noir's silhouette against the moon for a few more seconds before Tikki's words kick-started some more rational reflex. She felt her hand open the skylight.

"- sorry, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to scare you Marinette!" His voice was nervous.

Marinette stood on her bed. The cool night air hit her sweat-sticky skin and she shivered. She said nothing.

Chat Noir looked at her uncertainly. "I'll, um, I'll go," he stammered.

"No!"

The shout echoed off the roofs, and making them both jump. Chat Noir stared at her for a second. Then his eyes travelled down her arms to where she'd grabbed his hand with both of her own. She was squeezing it so tightly it was hurting her.

Marinette snatched her hands away from his jerkily, mumbling an apology. Chat Noir just stared at her for a long moment. She looked away. She knew she should say something, laugh it off, make an excuse, but her brain was still half-frozen in panic and all she could think about was that she didn't want him to leave.

"Are you..." He reached out slowly, so as not to startle her, and the pad of his thumb brushed her cheekbone. It came away wet. "Are you crying?"

His fingertips lined her jaw, tilting her face gently to meet his eyes. Green sclera, black pupils dilated with worry. Nothing white or blue about him, just her partner, alive and well and unakumatized, visibly concerned about her.

Marinette felt the lump rise once more in her throat, and before she could stop herself, she burst into tears.

She buried her face in her hands, horrified, but before she could apologize she felt him pulling her forward, and then somehow he was engulfing her in a tight hug. She hesitated no more than a second before throwing her arms around him, too. Chat Noir held her close, cupping her head with one hand while rubbing soothing circles into her back with the other, whispering soft words to the crown of her head as she sobbed helplessly onto his suit.

How long they stayed like that, neither of them knew. In the relative quiet of the Parisian night, time suspended itself, and Marinette allowed herself to forget about secret identities just long enough to cry her heart out in her best friend's arms.

When her sobs had run themselves down to sniffles, his voice brought her back to the present.

"Did you have a nightmare?"

She nodded, not trusting herself to speak without setting the tears off again.

"Wanna talk about it?"

She shook her head. She really needed to grab a tissue, but she didn't want to let go of him just yet.

Seeming to read her mind (or maybe just noticing the increase in sniffles), Chat Noir unzipped one of his pockets and took out the packet of tissues he always kept on hand for whenever Monsieur Ramier got akumatized. She unwrapped her arms from around his waist – he was sitting at the edge of her skylight, his feet dangling over her bed – and took them gratefully, although she didn't move from where she stood right in front of him. Noticing the wet patch of her tears on the front of his not-quite-waterproof suit, she took out another tissue and pushed it against his chest.

"Sorry, I got your suit wet," she croaked.

He let out a low chuckle and took the tissue from her. "It's okay," he said. "I'm sorry I scared you."

"You didn't... I mean, you did, but I was already scared. I'm... thank you for being here. I don't know why you were, but..."

It occurred to her then that she had no idea why Chat Noir was there in the first place. A tiny needle of fear pricked her gut as several unlikely possibilities ran through her mind: _Akuma? Hawkmoth? Did he figure out I'm Ladybug?_

She didn't have to wonder long.

"To be honest, I was having trouble sleeping, and... well, something felt wrong. I guess I felt like checking up on you." She looked up at him in surprise, just in time to see him hide his embarassment behind a cheeky grin and a wink. "Cats have a sixth sense, you know."

Marinette found herself smiling for the first time since she'd woken up.

"The only sixth sense you've got is one for the worst possible timing," she joked, poking him in the side. "Do you have any idea how scary is was, looking up from my bed and seeing those glowy green eyes?" She wasn't about to admit that it had been the moonlight turning his suit white that had scared her. That would take more explaining than she was willing to get into right now.

He pouted. "I said I was sorry."

"I know, Chat Noir, I'm teasing," she reassured him. "Though I'm not sure about this whole sixth sense thing." If a sixth sense did exist between them, Marinette was willing to bet it had to do with their bond as superheroes. Better not to let him think too hard about it while she was just Marinette.

"If it wasn't a sixth sense, then explain to me why I felt the need to check up on you?"

Marinette tapped her chin, pretending to think about it. "I dunno, maybe you missed me?"

The surprise on Chat Noir's face was comical. "I didn't know you could be such a tease, Marinette Dupain-Cheng!" He smirked. "As it happens, I do care about you. You're my friend, and all my friends are very important to me."

_How can he say such sweet things in such an annoying way?_ She wondered.

"Half of me wants to hug you and the other half wants to punch you," she told him.

He nodded solemnly. "I get that a lot. I'll accept both."

"You'd accept me punching you?"

"You'd probably miss, _Mademoiselle Maladroite_."

She narrowed her eyes at him, but she was still feeling too vulnerable to attempt to punch (even jokingly) the boy who had just brought her back from the nightmare. He must have seen some of that vulnerability in her eyes, because his gaze softened, and he smiled at her.

"At least tomorrow's Sunday, right? You can sleep in?"

"We're open Sunday mornings," Marinette groaned. She ducked down just far enough to see her alarm clock. It was 2:35AM. She sighed. "I have to get up at four to get the bread ready with my dad," she explained. "If I go back to sleep now, it's going to be way harder to get up later."

"That's rough, buddy," he said, and Marinette scowled at him.

"Did you just..?"

"Want me to stay up with you?"

Marinette blinked. "Don't you want to go back to sleep now you know I'm okay?"

Chat Noir looked at her, and as well as she knew him, it occurred to her that green sclera were far more difficult to read than human eyes. "Are you really okay, though?"

Maybe it was the weird hour, but Marinette couldn't bring herself to lie to him. "I guess... I'd be okay if you stayed," she admitted, not looking at him. Tikki was a great help usually, but Marinette knew from experience that the dream would haunt her until their next patrol. Or until she'd spent an hour or two forgetting it with him. It probably wouldn't hurt to do that as Marinette.

"Okay, fine," she said. "But we can't make too much noise, and my parents _cannot_ find you here. As soon as my alarm goes, so do you."

Chat Noir's eyes danced in amusement, and Marinette felt a flush of embarassment. Why couldn't she just act grateful for his presence? He was doing her a favour, and she was treating him like a stray she was indulging by letting him in.

_It's his fault for being so annoying about it_, said a petulant voice in her head.

He cut through her inner quarrel.

"Shall we hang out inside or outside?"

"Outside," she said immediately. "Less chance of waking my parents. Here, I'll get us something to sit on."

Five minutes and much back and forth between her room and the roof later, they were sitting side by side on a blanket and cushions with their backs against the wall and a plate of cookies between them (generously donated by Tikki), looking out over the Place des Vosges. What they could see of it, anyway. There had been a tense moment when he'd remarked that Ladybug sometimes brought the same picnic blanket to patrol, and she'd had to shrug it off and say they were a pretty common brand, but he hadn't pushed it, thankfully.

"Do you get nightmares a lot?" he asked after they'd demolished most of the cookies.

Marinette shook her head. "It's only started happening recently, and it's always the same one."

"Are you sure you don't want to talk about it?"

Marinette shook her head. "It's not like I can remember much of it, anyway. It's frustrating, because maybe if I did remember, I'd be able to process whatever it is it's trying to tell me and be done with it."

"Huh," he said. "That's weird. I've been getting dreams like that, too. Like some weird repressed memory thing."

"Really?"

"Yeah, except it's not always a nightmare. Sometimes it feels like a really good dream, but when I wake up, all I remember is the feeling I had in it. And... and when I remembe who and where I am... I feel this weird, deep sadness, even though my life is better now that it's ever been before."

He turned to her then, and his eyes took on that same inscrutable quality as before.

Marinette looked away. "It's always a nightmare for me," she said quietly. "But it always starts as a nice dream. I don't remember what happens in it, just that it's good. Amazing, even. But then, suddenly..."

"It all falls apart," he finished.

Marinette glanced up and away again just as quickly. The questions in his eyes scared her.

"Stupid brains trying to make us think about our feelings and stuff," she muttered, and he laughed, which was what she'd intended. "They're like those wise old men in fairy tales who hand out weird metaphores about the meaning of life," she continued. "Why can't you just tell me what it is you need me to know? I don't have time to work out your riddles, subconscious brain!"

"Hey, be nice to your brain," he said, reaching out to ruffle her hair. His hand lingered, and she let her head fall to his shoulder. "It's a good brain. It works hard."

"Are you kidding me? My brain can barely get me to school on time. It's constantly forgetting things that are really important, like assigments that are due or promises I've made! It requires way more sleep than most people's brains, but only at the least appropriate times, like in class, or – did I ever tell you I fell asleep in the cinema once?"

"Your brain remembers everyone's birthdays, favourite foods and colours, and it always knows exactly what to say to make someone feel better," he countered. Marinette barely had time to wonder how Chat Noir knew all these things about her before he continued: "Your brain produces incredible designs – I saw that magazine feature with your hat, by the way, and I heard you designed an album cover for _Jagged Effing Stone. And _you make your own clothes. You're, what, fourteen or fifteen? And you're already more talented than a lot of the adults I know."

Part of Marinette's brain wondered, not for the first time, if Chat Noir knew her in real life.

The rest of it was blushing furiously.

"That's just because I get obsessed about stuff and forget to eat and sleep sometimes," she muttered, keeping her head on his shoulder and hoping the fairy lights would be too dim for him to see how red her face was.

"That's a superpower, Marinette," Chat Noir insisted. "But it's like any superpower, there are downsides. You just have to learn how to deal with them." He hesitated, then went on: "I hyperfixate too, you know."

"You do?" She craned her neck, trying to look up at him without taking her head off his shoulder. It felt awkward and uncomfortable, so she gave up.

"Yeah, but I don't have any productive hobbies like you," he said. "I'm more likely to get lost in a video game or an anime. I'd forget to sleep if I didn't put a timer and several alarms on my phone."

"That... kinda feels like cheating," Marinette admitted. "I feel like I should be able to manage without. Like it's not self-discipline if I'm using my phone as a crutch."

"It's not a crutch, it's a tool," he insisted. "Self-discipline is still necessary to obey the alarms, switch off and get ready for bed. I need at least three alarms to be able to do that because I have so much trouble switching from anime mode to sleep mode. Or any other mode, really."

"When you put it like that, I guess..."

They sat in silence for a while. At some point during their conversation, Chat Noir's arm had settled around her shoulders, and he was playing with her hair absentmindedly. The now-empty plate of cookies had been pushed aside, and the warmth of his body against her side was comforting in the cool of the night.

Marinette found later that she couldn't remember what else they talked about, just that it was easy. It reminded her that even though she had no idea who he was behind the mask, Chat Noir was the one person she was closest to, apart from maybe Tikki. As much as Marinette loved and appreciated Alya, she was always _on_, always competent, always energetic, while still being the down-to-earth bestie who talked Marinette out of her thought spirals and texted her to make sure she was up for school. There was something amazing about Alya that made Marinette feel a little inferior, through no fault of Alya's – just because she seemed to be so much more on top of her life, whereas Marinette was constantly struggling.

_Alya doesn't moonlight as a superhero,_ Tikki would say.

She could have, though, and that was what hurt in Marinette's moments of self-doubt. Sometimes she wondered if she'd been right in her first instinct to give the Ladybug earrings to Alya. Maybe she should have been more direct in presenting them to her. She'd been incredible as Rena Rouge, after all. Only the knowledge that Master Fu had chosen _her_, Marinette, and nobody else, kept her from spiralling completely in those moments.

So it was immensely comforting to know that her strong, fearless, happy-go-lucky partner was also secretly struggling with such silly things as remembering to eat and sleep.

A click from the room below them stopped their conversation in its tracks.

"Marinette?"

_Oh crap! _Chat Noir scrambled up in a panic, snatching his warmth away from her, and Marinette wondered if he'd ever get over the lingering fear of her father instilled in him by the Weredad incident.

She grabbed his hand and motioned for him to sit still and be quiet.

"I'm up here, Papa," she said, turning away from Chat Noir and peering down through the skylight. Her phone was on, vibrating next to her pillow, and she saw Tikki flit over discreetly to swipe it off.

"Up already?" Tom's eyebrows shot up. "Who are you and what have you done with my daughter?"

"Ha, ha." She stuck her tongue out at him and he chuckled. "You use the bathroom first, I'll be down in about twenty minutes."

"Alright sweetie."

When he'd closed the trap door to her bedroom, Marinette turned back to see Chat Noir watching her with something between admiration and wariness.

"You're used to this, aren't you?" he said.

"Used to what?"

"Hiding things from your parents."

_Oh CRAP._

"Only since a certain cat started visiting me," she retorted, poking him in the ribs. "Now get out of here before I have to do it again!"

If the unease his words had woken in her showed on her face, Chat Noir didn't mention it. Together they stood and stretched, noticing the tiniest hint of dawn peeking over the eastern horizon.

Then, without warning, he hugged her again.

"Thanks for letting me stay," he murmured into her ear.

Marinette let out a surprised laugh. "You're the one who cheered me up after my nightmare," she said. "I should be thanking you."

"I needed the company as much as you did," he said, pulling back to look at her fondly. She smiled at him.

"Anytime," she said, and meant it.

Later, she noticed that for the first time since she'd starting having the nightmare, it hadn't ruined her day. In fact, despite the early morning, the hard, hot kitchen work, and the boredom of being grounded, today was the best day she'd had in weeks. She spent the day humming the same refrain, a song she'd heard on one of Luka's playlists:

"I had a dream

I got everything I wanted

But when I wake up I see

You with me"


End file.
